Brand Strategy: How Do Sub-Brands Work?

Brad VanAuken The Blake ProjectDecember 20, 20112 min

Branding Strategy Insider helps marketing oriented leaders and professionals like you build strong brands. BSI readers know, we regularly answer questions from marketers everywhere. Today we hear from Martin, a Brand Consultant in Brisbane, Australia who asks this about brand architecture strategy.

I am consulting a non-profit organization on improving their brand strategy. They support people affected by crime, including perpetrators. While some people are fine with that, others balk at it. They are considering a sub-brand to cover the work that they do with (non-perpetrator) families and children and victims of crime. How would such a sub-brand work?

Thanks for your question Martin. Sub-brands (or separate brands) can often create enough of a distance from the parent brand to reduce cognitive dissonance related to seemingly conflicting brand associations. Disney was successful in doing this by creating the Touchstone and Miramax labels for R rated movies that did not deliver against Disney’s wholesome “family entertainment” image. Hallmark created Shoebox and endorsed it with the Hallmark brand (“A tiny little division of Hallmark”) because people originally did not think irreverent, edgy humor was appropriate for the Hallmark brand.

The question is, “Should the new brand be an entirely separate brand not linked formally to the original brand or should it be a sub-brand of the original brand or endorsed by that brand?” It depends on how much distance is required. If your client does create a new brand for the victims of crimes, it should come to be known as the organization (or portion of the overall organization) that represents the victims rather than the perpetrators of crimes. If it is a sub-brand, it could have its own name (as if it were a separate organization or group) or it could be a generic descriptor (such as “Crime Victims Division”) under the parent firm’s name.

Our brand architecture guide will also be helpful.

All the best with your consulting project Martin.

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